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As one of the early contenders for Game of the Year, Funcom's The Secret World has been in live retail release for a month now. We've got our official review of The Secret World for your viewing pleasure. Keep reading and then leave us your thoughts in comments.

Aesthetically speaking, The Secret World is one of the prettiest games I’ve ever seen particularly if played using DirectX 11. Each zone has its own look, sound and tone created through a fluid combination of music, ambient sounds, a brilliant color palette and mobs of monsters that fit the setting. Seoul, London and New York are filled with the typical sounds of cities and all are bustling with activity of one sort or another. Sometimes it’s nothing short of breathtaking and you find yourself standing there in awe.

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I really enjoyed this game. If they can continue to add new missions on a monthly basis and alternate in new skills and weapons once a quarter I think they are really on to something. I also think they will need a new dungeon or two sprinkled in there as well. Not just nightmare modes to extend the gear grind.

I was really surprised by the game. I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would. Keep up the good work so this will still be relevant a year from now.

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How in the bloody hell did you find it "ok" to take what essentially boils down to "Graphics" and turn it into a major scoring point for TSW? Graphics =/= a game. This shouldn't be a scoring point!

Game Play – 8.5??

This is a highly opinion based score area given the fact that people whom like WoW will like TSW's gameplay, but generally speaking people whom like DAOC, EQ, SWG, or even Age of Conan's combat system will dislike it immensely. You should put near the beginning of your article which game you mostly relate to for your scores. Obviously I don't agree at all with an "8.5" given TSW's horribly clunky & non-intuitive combat system. Not to mention the horrible animations.

Value & Longevity – 8.0??

Your primary reason, as stated, for this scoring point was based on SWTOR's recent announcement about F2P and that since TSW already has a cash-shop it'll make a clean transition to F2P should subs prove to dip too low?!

Value & Longevity is a scoring point, in most reviews, that dictate replayability & end-game enjoyment. At the VERY LEAST it has nothing to do with the payment model associated with the game.

NONE OF THE POINTS YOU RAISED FOR SCORING MAKE ANY SENSE AS A PRIMARY REVIEWBASE!

Next, we look at your overall Pros/Cons that have zero connection to any of your previous scoring points:

Pros

Deep skill system - Just a facade, not actually "deep"

GREAT story - Agreed, but so did SWTOR

Meaningful dungeons - How exactly are they "meaningful", they have no impact at all on the world outside those instances?!

Tiered and unique questing - Same quest system used by WoW. Go to point A get quests 1 - 9, do quests, go to Point B for higher tiered/chained quests. Nothing unique here other than the occassional "gem" with a half-decent story behind it.

Cons

Lack of initial character customization - Yup

Lackluster PvP - Yup

Repetitive trash mobs - Yup

[mod edited - removed some spacing]

The Theory of Conservative Conservation of Ignorant Stupidity:Having a different opinion must mean you're a troll.

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Certainly one I will play 'properly' some time in the future. Not sure about the longevity, it's story based tbh and they will never be able to produce that remotely quick enough to keep up with even the most casual gamer.

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Can't say I agree with the score, but it's just a number. I would give the game a 7-7.5/10, but alas I do not have to worry about the things a website that reviews games has to worry about. At the end of the day the game was nothing more than a purple gear treadmill to me, a game that had a great story and good way of telling it and a game that did challenge me all the way unitl the end, but it was a ride that ended much too soon. I personally am tired of gear grinds, spamming "LFG DPS" and shallow pvp and crafting and this game surely fits that bill.

Anyways, fun game for me for a little while, will probably check back later when they have added more story content.

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[mod edit]

My favorite part of the review:

On release, players had two purchase options: $50 for the box plus a $15 per month subscription fee; or the box plus a $200 lifetime subscription. Given the amount of content that The Secret World shipped with, players will get their money’s worth in short order.

I'm not sure if this is a hint of cleverness from the author, trying to subtly play with words by mocking the limited content as "players will get their money's worth in short order". I'm going to pretend it is, because you really can't get your money's worth from a 200$ lifetime subscription in "short order". You're stuck with this sinking ship for over a year just to break even on what you paid.

All in all, another glowing review by MMORPG.com for a mediocre game, misleading the community once again into investing time and money.

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I love the game. One of the best MMo's I have played and I have played them all. The bugs are annoying and the crafting is usless so I think an 8.5 is right on.

I am not sure how people say there is not much content. I have played over 125 hours and I am not done with egypt yet. I have only finished 22% of the skill wheel. I guess if you look up hints online and rush through everything then it would go quick, but this is a different game. You are not supposed to just blow through the investigative missions. Several of them have taken me over 3 hours to complete. The most fun I have had in a MMO.

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I was selected to participate in the beta, which I did, and after playing a few hours I uninstalled.

The game interface is visually bland, and boring. The animations and spell effects were terrible. The targeting reticles and combat interactive was amateur.

But mainly, the game raised a red flag to me as being a single-player story driven clone just like SWTOR. SWTOR taught me that no amount of voiceovers or elaborate quests can make an MMO worthwhile because once you roll your first alt, your seeing the same crap over again. TSW struck me as a game who put alot of its investment into the voice overs, cut scenes, and quests puzzles. What good is a puzzle quest on an alt? If you remember how to do it all.

I've got plenty of disposable income to spend on new MMORPGs. But I'm tired of voting with my dollar for single player movie RPGs being advertised as MMORPGs.

WE, 'the players' are supposed to make the story, not the developers. Hopefully people will eventually realize how much more fulfilling a sandbox/community based MMORPG is and quit contruting their money towards these one-time-use story MMO's.

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I wholeheartedly agree with this review. And by the way The Secret World is currently ranked as #2 as the best PC game based on user ratings on Metacritic.com (close to 600 have voted). I'm really enjoying this game and will stick around a long time, and the monthly updates is genius. I think the longevity for this game will be exceptionally good.

And by the way, make sure to check out the free weekend starting tomorrow.

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What fadedbomb said was not true at all.I wonder if he even played the game. 1 example is the quest system. It is not go to point a and collect 9 quests. First of all your only allowed one main quest and 3sside quests. Idiot

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I rated this game an 8.4.

Most engaging themepark MMO I've played since...well, maybe ever. The thing that makes me laugh is I've been waiting for GW2 for years, and now that I've played both, I can't believe TSW is the better of the 2 for me. Crazy.

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Well I am of the biggest funcom critics out there but in 1 aspect it time to give credit where credit is due. I will admitt Funcom did a good job with the launch, much better than their other 2 games. So basiacally I was wrong folks. It happens every once in a while.

I had 2 major concerns about this game, Launch being one of my main concers (which I already addressed), longevity was the other.

However, this game has no real longevity 8.0 is a joke. Just another classic example of a honeymoon write up. Its just another 60-90 day mmo.

I am not even going to address the other points, because basically this author is the same one who gave SWTOR insane high marks in every category. He/She has no business writting up reviews, has absolutly 0 credability. When I read a review I do not want to read a mother %^&*$%^ sales pitch! I want to know good points of a game and bad points of a game. Once upon a time this site did a decent job on its reviews, gave you the good and the bad, and not lie to you saying everything was great.

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I love the game. One of the best MMo's I have played and I have played them all. The bugs are annoying and the crafting is usless so I think an 8.5 is right on.

I am not sure how people say there is not much content. I have played over 125 hours and I am not done with egypt yet. I have only finished 22% of the skill wheel. I guess if you look up hints online and rush through everything then it would go quick, but this is a different game. You are not supposed to just blow through the investigative missions. Several of them have taken me over 3 hours to complete. The most fun I have had in a MMO.

I mainly finished up with the game quickly because I was grouping with friends. If you have 3- 4 people doing the investigation missions. Do you think it will take that much time to finish them? Playing the game like an mmo makes the game shorter. If you do not repeat any missions you will also move through the content faster also. The game only has about 400-500 missions. With almost half being side missions that take a few minutes to complete. If you do not believe me, go look at all the mission givers. A majority only give 1 to 2 missions. Some giving 3 to 5 and there are usually only 9 - 10 of them in each zone. There are only 8 zones. Add them up and see what you get.